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Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome was born December 18, 1824 in New Haven, Connecticut, lived her entire life in Connecticut, and died on April 22, 1910 at the age of eighty-six. Her parents were Hezekiah Gilbert and Rebecca Driggs Gilbert. She studied painting with Emanuel Leutze and became a well-known portrait artist in Hartford during the 1860s and 1870s. She married Nelson Benjamin Jerome on December 8, 1858. They had two daughters before separating in 1887, when she moved back to her family home in New Haven. One daughter, named Jane Gilbert Jerome but known as Jennie G. in her family, was born in Hartford on March 14, 1861. She studied at Hartford Female Seminary in the 1870s and died at the age of twenty-one on May 9, 1887. Her sister, Elizabeth Maude Jerome, was born on November 21, 1864 in Hartford and also attended Hartford Female Seminary in the 1870s. She married Yuan Phou Lee, a Yale-educated scholar and lecturer from Canton, China, on July 6, 1887. They had two children, Jennie Gilbert Jerome and Amos Gilbert Nelson Jerome. She divorced Lee shortly after their son's birth and raised the children with her mother in New Haven. She died on January 10, 1939 at the age of seventy-four. Her son, known as Gilbert Nelson Jerome in his family, was born on November 15, 1889 in New Haven. He graduated with honors from New Haven High School in 1907 and received a Ph.B. in electrical engineering from Yale University in 1910. He also received a Bachelor of Humanics degree from the International YMCA College in Springfield, Massachusetts in 1914. He was involved with the Boy Scouts of America and became the first Scout Executive of that organization in New Haven in 1915. When the United States entered World War I in 1917, he volunteered and trained as a pilot. In February 1918 he was commissioned as First Lieutenant, Aviation Section, Signal Officers Reserve Corps and sent for training in Paris, France. He flew a Spad 90 for the 8th French Army and was killed by anti-aircraft fire near Blamont, France on July 11, 1918. He was buried in the German military cemetery near Blamont. His remains were moved to an American military cemetery in Argonne in 1919, then, in 1921, reburied in New Haven. His mother gave a stained glass window in his memory, made by Tiffany and Company, to the Plymouth Congregational Church in New Haven.
The Jerome Family Papers consist of a scrapbook, an autograph album, a commonplace book, a spelling book, course records, and school catalogue, biographical and genealogical information, and photographs. The individuals represented are relatives of Jennie Gilbert Jerome (1888-1979), a 1911 graduate of Mount Holyoke College. The material relates to her grandmother, Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome (1824-1910); her aunt, Jennie G. Jerome (1861-1887); her mother, Elizabeth Maude Jerome (1864-1939); and her brother, Gilbert Nelson Jerome (1889-1918). Much of the collection consists of items dating from 1914-1922 and 1956 that relate to her brother. This material includes a tribute entitled "In Memory of Yale's Dead in the War" and a published biography of him written by his mother. There are also photographs and a photograph album concerning his military service and death in World War I. These images include photographs of him in uniform with his airplane, of his funeral and burial sites in France and Connecticut and of the memorial stone and Tiffany window commissioned in his honor. Also included are pages about him from the International YMCA College (Springfield, Massachusetts) yearbook of 1914. Material for his mother, Elizabeth Maude Jerome, consists of a scrapbook of small highly-colored and embossed die-cut chromolithographs compiled in about 1876, an autograph album dating from about 1877-1881 that includes signatures of Hartford Female Seminary classmates and teachers, a letter from the 1920s requesting genealogical information, and her obituary. Material for her sister Jennie G. Jerome consists of items dating from 1873-1879 when she, too, attended Hartford Female Seminary. This material includes a published "Spelling-Book for Advanced Classes" by William T. Adams, 1873, her notes for her studies, and a school catalogue for 1878-1879. Material for their mother Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome consists of a commonplace book from 1850-circa 1870 that contains "Prose and Poetry, And Gems from late Readings." Jerome family material consists of a poem written for a relative in 1848 and information about both Gilbert and Jerome family members as recorded in the pages of a Bible between circa 1824-1939. The collection also includes a photograph of Elizabeth Maude Jerome, possibly from the 1920s, and two photograph albums dating from the 1860s to about 1900 that contain images of members of the Gilbert and Jerome families and carte-de-visite photographs of well-known individuals, including United States presidents and generals and American and English authors.
This collection is organized into six series:
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Please use the following format when citing materials from this collection:
Jerome Family Papers, Mount Holyoke College Archives and Special Collections, South Hadley, MA.
Arranged chronologically.
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The material consists of pages from the family Bible and a poem entitled "To Priscilla on her Birthday" written by "M.F.V." for "Grandmother Jerome" on November 23, 1848. The Bible was published in 1824 and records birth, marriage, and death dates for Jerome family members from 1752-1939 and for Gilbert family members from 1858-1939. The poem entitled "To Priscilla on her Birthday" was written by "M.F.V." and dated November 23rd, 1848.
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This material consists of a commonplace book compiled between 1850 and about 1870 by Elizabeth Gilbert Jerome. Its title is "Elizabeth Gilbert's Book Of Prose and Poetry, And Gems from Late Readings. New Haven June 5th 1850". It contains poetry, quotations, some prose and one page of clippings regarding the death of a Dr. Schue. Most entries are not signed and some may be original writings by Jerome or her friends.
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This material dates from Jennie G. Jerome's years as a student at Hartford Female Seminary. It consists of a spelling book from 1873, documents found inside the spelling book dating from 1875-1878, and a school catalogue for 1878-1879 that lists names of faculty, board members and students and describes the curriculum. The "Spelling-Book for Advanced Classes" by William T. Adams was published in Boston by Brewer and Tileston. Jerome's notes concern her spelling lessons as well as her study of algebra and ancient history. These documents also include poems and her "Monthly Report Card for the year beginning Sept. 12th 1877." The card reflects her study of rhetoric, Latin, algebra, and spelling.
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The material consists of a scrapbook, an autograph album, a letter, and an obituary. The scrapbook dates from about 1876 and is filled with colorful stickers of flowers, birds, insects, animals, cherubs, mythological figures, children, and elaborately-dressed men and women. Jerome began the autograph album when she attended the Hartford Female Seminary in the 1870s. Entries date from about 1877-1881 and consist of signatures, good wishes, and words of advice written by friends, classmates, teachers and the school principal. The letter, probably written in the 1920s, is a request for Gilbert family genealogical information from Frederick Dwight of New York City. The obituary for Jerome (which is incomplete) was photocopied from the New Haven "Journal Courier" of January 14, 1939.
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This material dates from 1914 to about 1921 and consists of pages from a yearbook, tributes, and a published biography. The biography, entitled "Lieut. Gilbert Nelson Jerome," was written by his mother, Elizabeth Maude Jerome, and privately printed in 1920. It describes his childhood, education, artistic talent, involvement with the Boy Scouts of America and the Young Men's Christian Association, military training and service during World War I, and death in combat. The book also includes some of his drawings and poems and it is illustrated by numerous photographs. Pages from "The Massasoit," the yearbook of the Class of 1914 at International YMCA College of Springfield, describe his college achievements and extracurricular activities. A copy of "In Memory of Yale's Dead in the War," published by the Yale War Memorial Committee, is attached to a letter from the University Secretary's Office which was sent to his mother in memory of Jerome's life and war service.
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This material contains photographs and three photograph albums. One photograph, possibly dating from the 1920s, is of Elizabeth Maude Jerome. The other photographs and one album relate to Gilbert Nelson Jerome's military service and death during World War I. Included are photographs of him in uniform and with his airplane as well as photographs of the funeral service for him at the German military cemetery in Blamont, France, on July 14, 1918, and his subsequent burial sites in Argonne, France and New Haven, Connecticut. Photographs of the Tiffany and Company memorial window given to the Plymouth Congregational Church in New Haven by his mother are also included in this material. The two other photograph albums date from the 1860s to about 1900. A green leather covered album with raised brass decorations, inscribed on the flyleaf "Mrs. E. G. Jerome, Hartford," contains nineteen pages of photographs of family members, persons of note, and paintings. An "Index to Portfolio" at the front of this volume describes how the photographs were arranged, but that order was changed at some point and the album now contains carte-de-visite photographs of Martha Washington, Abraham Lincoln and family, Empress Carlotta of Mexico, Ulysses S. Grant, and the children of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. Most of the Jerome and Gilbert family photographs are tintypes. A brown cloth-bound album contains twenty pages of photographs of members of the Jerome and Gilbert families. Also included in this album are carte-de-visite photographs of Louis Agassiz, Charles Dickens, Horace Greeley, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, John Brown, William T. Sherman, Edward Everett, Andrew Jackson, Anna Dickinson, and Frederick Douglass.